Abraham Lincoln

2/6/2018

(For the video, scroll down). Abraham Lincoln was the most hated and despised president of all time, yet he is one of America’s greatest presidents. During the years before the presidential election of 1860, Lincoln clearly stated that slavery was a morally evil and corrupt institution, and that one day, the country would be either all free or all slave. His clarity on this issue led the South to believe that Lincoln would try to abolish slavery, even though he never stated he would. His election to the presidency in 1860 pushed the first Southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America. Over the next four years, 1861-1865, Lincoln led the effort to crush the rebellion in the South.

Lincoln’s circumstances of youth were common to many Americans. He was born on February 12, 1809, in Kentucky, in a log cabin. His family was part of the Separate Baptist Church, which forbade alcohol, dancing, and slavery. Abraham’s dad, Thomas, saw Indians kill his own father. When Abraham was 9, his family moved north to Indiana. Then, Abraham’s mom died. About a year later, Thomas remarried to Sarah, called “Sally.” Abraham came to love Sally and called her “mother.” As a young person, Abraham learned to read and write at an “ABC School” a few weeks per year. In ABC Schools, children in a larger community met at a log cabin and were taught by a private tutor. Lincoln read the Bible, Robinson Crusoe, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Franklin’s Autobiography, and law books, whenever he had extra time. At the age of 21, Lincoln moved west to Illinois.

As a boy and young man, Lincoln was known as physically strong and a person of wit. He was 6 feet, 4 inches tall, lanky and wiry. For fun, he would tell stories and wrestle. Lincoln is enshrined in the Wrestling Hall of Fame, and had a 300-1 record. Once, after beating his opponent, Lincoln looked at the crowd and declared, “I’m the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns.” Nobody took him up on the offer.

Lincoln was a reader, a hard worker, and a person of character whom others respected. He read the few books he had many times, and when possible, he borrowed books from other frontier settlers. While living with his parents, he worked on the family farm all day. Lincoln traveled by flatboat down the Mississippi River in 1828 and 1831, and he later received a patent pertaining to flatboats. In the Black Hawk War, Lincoln was voted militia corporal. When he lived on his own, Lincoln opened a store with his partner, who then embezzled all the money. Lincoln worked to pay off the resulting debt of $1,000 (equal to about $26,000 in 2017). Later he decided to be a lawyer.

Lincoln’s understanding of religion changed over time. As a young man, he was skeptical that God and Jesus Christ existed. Later, he believed in Christ, but he still rejected joining a religious denomination. Toward the end of his life, Lincoln was convinced of the truth of the New Testament and was led by his faith. In the election of 1846, he campaigned, “I am not a member of any Christian Church…but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures.” During the Civil War, Lincoln professed a conversion experience to Christianity. Immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln visited the battle scene. He wrote this of what happened:
"When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I love Jesus."

After this, Lincoln prayed every day and read the Bible. To a friend he wrote, “Take all of this book [the Bible] upon reason you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.”

Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842 and had four boys. Though Lincoln left Mary Todd at the altar during their first wedding attempt, Lincoln called marriage a “profound wonder.” His son Edward died at the age of four of thyroid cancer. William died at the age of 12 of typhoid fever. Tad died of pneumonia at the age of 18. Only Robert lived into adulthood, dying in 1926. The boys’ deaths were a source of great sadness for the Lincolns.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Lincoln was known for physical beauty, but they were known for their character, ideas, and determination. Mary once said of her husband, “Mr. Lincoln is to be president of the United States some day. If I had not thought so, I would not have married him, for you can see he is not pretty.”

In 1858, Americans learned a great deal about the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln through the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Republican Abraham Lincoln was running for an Illinois U.S. Senate seat against the incumbent Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas. Lincoln was relatively unknown in the country, and many believed Douglas would one day be president. Lincoln and Douglas debated seven times, with each debate lasting around three hours. The debates were big events, with bands, food, and whiskey. At the end of each debate, the candidates shook hands, and maintained a cordial, friendly attitude toward each other. There was no questioner or moderator, only the two men on stage, speaking at great length.

At the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the two candidates expressed greatly different views, especially on slavery. Lincoln spoke strongly against slavery, calling it a moral evil. Lincoln’s clear and unequivocal talk on slavery angered Southern Democrats who wanted slavery to expand. Douglas stated that he was personally against slavery, but he favored popular sovereignty, that the decision should be left to the people in the individual states.

At the last debate, Lincoln stated,
"The real issue is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong…The Republican Party look(s) upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong…and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger…That is the real issue.” [The black man is] “entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…In the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”

In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln argued that the new Republican Party believed the Southern states opposed the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln saw slavery as a sin, as evil, and as a threat to liberty and equality for all. How Lincoln foresaw ending slavery, however, was through legal means, either by voting or appointing Northern judges who would chip away at slavery in the courts. He wanted to peacefully abolish slavery through law, over time.

Stephen Douglas won the 1858 Senate election against Abraham Lincoln, but Lincoln became a national political figure. All Americans understood that Lincoln and the Republicans saw slavery as morally corrupt, and that over time, they would work to end it. When Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the Southern states believed they had to secede from the Union in order to preserve the Southern culture, which included slavery.

The Civil War
Nearly the entire Presidency of Abraham Lincoln consisted of the Civil War. Over 600,000 Americans gave their lives, and over that number suffered injuries. The North defeated the South and the United States remained as one country. Immediately after the war, the northern states passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Five days after Lee’s surrender and just over one month after Lincoln’s second inauguration, a Southern actor conspired with others and then shot Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865. Lincoln was attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when his bodyguard John Parker left his post to get a drink at a nearby tavern. John Wilkes Booth snuck behind the president, aimed his .44–caliber gun inches from the back of Lincoln’s head, and fired. President Lincoln was carried across the street to a nearby inn and died nine hours later.

After the assassination, Booth jumped to the stage below, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus be it ever to tyrants”), and escaped on his waiting horse. Soon after, Federal soldiers trapped him in a barn, set it on fire, and a cavalryman shot Booth as he tried to escape. Lincoln’s conspirators had planned to murder a number of Republicans, but failed in their attempts. Four of Booth’s conspirators, three men and one woman, were hanged. Three others received life sentences, and one went to jail for six years.

Lincoln’s assassination immortalized the 16th President, alongside Washington and Jefferson, as one of America’s greatest heroes, and it led Congress to punish the South for its rebellion. The morning after Lincoln’s murder, Walt Whitman wrote the poem “O Captain, My Captain.” This poem expressed the grief many people in the North felt after Lincoln’s death.

In Lincoln’s second inaugural address, given a little over a month before his assassination, he stated:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

Lincoln had planned generous peace terms for Southerners who had joined the Confederate States of America, but his assassination gave control of the government to the Radical Republicans, who wanted to completely change the South.
Questions
1. Did Abraham Lincoln experience tragedy as a young boy?
2. What did Lincoln do for work before he left home?
3. Did Lincoln read many books or a few books many times as a young person?
4. Before becoming President, what did Lincoln do for work?
5. What did Mary Todd think about Abraham's physical appearance?
6. What was Lincoln's stance on slavery before the Civil War?
7. Describe Lincoln's conversion experience regarding Christianity.
8. Why did Southern Democrats secede from the United States of America?
9. How did Lincoln die?
10. Why do Americans celebrate the life of Abraham Lincoln?

For a more detailed version of Abraham Lincoln, slavery in America, and the Civil War, read The Story of Liberty, America's Heritage Through the Civil War, by John De Gree. For a Video Lesson on Lincoln, Go Here and scroll down.

13 Comments

Susan Wanke

2/7/2018 06:15:35 am

Very well written. Loved the detail and personal notes that I had not heard of before. So often a public figure's religious background is left out, which of course is the backbone of every human being.

John De Gree

2/7/2018 09:05:32 am

Thank you Susan. In my history writing, I attempt to find out what inspired the person to live the way he did. In our time, the religious and mystical element of the human is left out, and I hope my writing can bring this to the forefront.

Desiree Gonzalez

2/9/2018 04:06:37 pm

I really love this passage you did a excellent job writing this I really enjoyed reading this article about Abraham Lincoln I really love all the new facts I did not know about Abraham Lincoln

Russell Person link

2/10/2019 07:43:10 pm

Was Lincoln a tyrant who broke the Constitution? What were the differences between Lincoln and George III?

Russell Person

President Lincoln has been all but deified in America, with a god-like giant statue at a Parthenon-like memorial in Washington. Generations of school children have been indoctrinated with the story that “Honest Abe” Lincoln is a national hero who saved the Union and fought a noble war to end slavery, and that the “evil” Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery. This is the Yankee myth of history, written and promulgated by Northerners, and it is a complete falsity. It was produced and entrenched in the culture in large part to gloss over the terrible war crimes committed by Union soldiers in the War Between the States, as well as Lincoln’s violations of the law, his shredding of the Constitution, and other reprehensible acts. It has been very effective in keeping the average American ignorant of the real causes of the war, and the real nature, character and record of Lincoln. Let us look at some unpleasant facts.
In his first inaugural address, Lincoln stated clearly that (1) he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery where it existed, (2) that he had no inclination or intention to do so even if he had the legal authority, (3) that he would enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, returning runaway slaves escaping to the North to their masters in the South, and (4) that he fully supported the Thirteenth Amendment then being debated in Congress which would protect slavery in perpetuity and was irrevocable. He later famously stated, “Do not paint me with the Abolitionist brush.”
Although there was some opposition to slavery in the country, the government was willing to concede everything the South wanted regarding slavery to keep it in the Union. Given all these facts, the idea that the South seceded to protect slavery is as absurd as the idea that Lincoln fought the war to end slavery. Lincoln himself said in a famous letter after the war began that his sole purpose was to save the Union, and not to either save or end slavery; that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would. Nothing could be clearer.
For decades before the war, the South, through harsh tariffs, had been supplying about 85% of the country’s revenue, nearly all of which was being spent in the North to boost its economy, build manufacturing, infrastructure, railroads, canals, etc. With the passage of the 47% Morrill Tariff the final nail was in the coffin. The South did not secede to protect slavery, although certainly they wished to protect it; they seceded over a dispute about unfair taxation, an oppressive Federal government, and the right to separate from that oppression and be governed “by consent”, exactly the same issues over which the Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War. When a member of Lincoln’s cabinet suggested he let the South go in peace, Lincoln famously replied, “Let the South go? Where, then, would we get our revenue!” He then launched a brutal, empirical war to keep the free and sovereign states, by force of arms, in the Union they had created and voluntarily joined, and then voluntarily left. This began his reign of terror.
Lincoln was the greatest tyrant and despot in American history. In the first four months of his presidency, he created a complete military dictatorship, destroyed the Constitution, ended forever the constitutional republic which the Founding Fathers instituted, committed horrendous crimes against civilian citizens, and formed the tyrannical, overbearing and oppressive Federal government which the American people suffer under to this day. In his first four months, he
1. Failed to call Congress into session after the South fired upon Fort Sumter, in direct violation of the Constitution.
2. Called up an army of 75,000 men, bypassing the Congressional authority in direct violation of the Constitution.
3. Unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a function of Congress, violating the Constitution. This gave him the power, as he saw it, to arrest civilians without charge and imprison them indefinitely without trial—which he did.
4. Ignored a Supreme Court order to restore the right of habeas corpus, thus violating the Constitution again and ignoring the Separation of Powers which the Founders put in place exactly for the purpose of preventing one man’s using tyrannical powers in the executive.
5. When the Chief Justice forwarded a copy of the Supreme Court’s decision to Lincoln, he wrote out an order for the arrest of the Chief Justice and gave it to a U.S. Marshall for expedition, in violation of the Constitution.
6. Unilaterally ordered a naval blockade of southern ports, an act of war, and a responsibility of Congress, in violation of the Constitution.
7. Commandeered and closed over 300 newspapers in the North, because of editorial

Russell Person

2/10/2019 07:46:42 pm

7.Commandeered and closed over 300 newspapers in the North, because of editorials against his war policy and his illegal military invasion of the South. This clearly violated the First Amendment freedom of speech and press clauses.
8. Sent in Army forces to destroy the printing presses and other machinery at those newspapers, in violation of the Constitution.
9. Arrested the publishers, editors and owners of those newspapers, and imprisoned them without charge and without trial for the remainder of the war, all in direct violation of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court order aforementioned.
10. Arrested and imprisoned, without charge or trial, another 13,000 U.S. citizens who dared to speak out against the war, his policies, or were suspected of anti-war feelings. (Relative to the population at the time, this would be equivalent to President G.W. Bush arresting and imprisoning roughly 150,00 Americans without trial for “disagreeing” with the Iraq war; can you imagine?)
11. Sent the Army to arrest over a third of the legislature of Maryland to keep them from meeting legally, because they were debating a bill of secession; they were all imprisoned without charge or trial, in direct violation of the Constitution.
12. Unilaterally created the state of West Virginia in direct violation of the Constitution.
13. Sent 350,000 Northern men to their deaths to kill 350,000 Southern men in order to force the free and sovereign states of the South to remain in the Union they, the people, legally voted to peacefully withdraw from, all in order to continue the South’s revenue flow into the North.
These are just a few of the most egregious things Lincoln did during his despotic presidency. He set himself up as a tyrannical dictator with powers never before utilized or even imagined by any previous administration. During this four years of terrible war he was one of the greatest despots the world has ever known, his tyranny focused against his own countrymen, both North and South. He was called a despot and tyrant by many newspapers and citizens both North and South, until he had imprisoned nearly all those who dared to simply speak out against his unconstitutional usurpations of power. Those who disagreed with him were branded as “traitors”, just as were the brave and honorable men in the states which had legally seceded from the Union over just such issues as these criminal abuses of power by the Federal government.
Four months after Fort Sumter, when Lincoln finally called Congress back into session, no one dared oppose anything he wanted or speak out against him for fear of imprisonment, so completely had he entrenched his unilateral power and silenced his other many critics.
The Union army, under Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and President Lincoln, committed active genocide against Southern civilians—this is difficult for some to believe, but it is explicit in their writings and dispatches at the time and indisputable in their actions. Tens of thousands of Southern men, women and children—civilians—white and black, slave and free alike—were shot, hanged, raped, imprisoned without trial, their homes, lands and possessions stolen, pillaged and burned, in one of the most horrific and brutal genocides ever inflicted upon a people anywhere; but the Yankee myth of history is silent in these well-documented matters. For an excellent expose of these war crimes and their terrible extent, see War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco.
Only after the Union had suffered two years of crushing defeats in battle did Lincoln resolve to “emancipate” the slaves, and only as a war measure, a military tactic, not for moral or humanitarian purposes. He admitted this, remarking, “We must change tactics or lose the game.” He was hoping, as his original draft of the document shows, that a slave uprising would occur, making it harder for Southerners to continue the war. His only interest in freeing the slaves was in forcing the South to remain in the Union. His Emancipation Proclamation was denounced by Northerners, Southerners and Europeans alike for its absurdity and hypocrisy; for, it only “freed” the slaves in the seceded states—where he could not reach them—and kept slavery intact in the North and the border states—where he could have freed them at once.
The Gettysburg Address, the most famous speech in American history, is an absurd piece of war rhetoric and a poetry of lies. We were not “engaged in a great Civil War, to see whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure.” The South was engaged in a War of Independence from a tyrannical North, and after having legally seceded, wished only “to be let alone.” The North was engaged in a war of empire, to keep the South involuntarily under its yoke. Government “of the people, by the people and for the people&

2/11/2019 09:44:18 am

HI Russell,
Thank you for posting on my article to start the discussion.

The secessionist states' constitutions and the constitution of the CSA has explicit wording stating the primary role of slavery as a reason for separating from the USA. The CSA leaders argued that the creation of the CSA was to maintain the political superiority of whites over the inferior blacks.

I strongly suggest you read Michael Allen's and Larry Schweikart's book, A Patriot's History of the U.S. They provide the documentation you should look into. As a historian, I encourage you to look into this book and into the proofs they put forth. This includes Lincoln's conversion to Christianity.

God bless you, your family, and your work!
John

2/11/2019 04:09:00 pm

Russell Person <[email protected]>
3:02 PM (1 hour ago)
to John

Thank you John. I value that text, A Patriot's History of the US. I have recommended it many times. I must clarify that there were four secession documents that did mention slavery out of the eleven total. Virginia's counts only to the extent that it cites it's secession as a result of their warning to Lincoln to not use force against the slave holding states. I hardly think that use of slavery counts equally with those who argue that keeping slavery was the reason to end all reasons for secession. Of course there is the question as to why the United States invaded the Confederate states and prosecuted the war for those long four years. I think we can agree, the United States did not fight the war to free the slaves.

Many cite the cornerstone speech, or should I say half of the cornerstone speech as proof of the extent slavery caused the secession. The other half of the speech, rarely cited gives a full exploration as to several grievances the Southern States held regarding their equal staus in the government. I think the entire speech is worth reading. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/

In the end, slavery was an emotional appeal and capital in the form of tariff's, mercantilism, internal improvements and crony capitalism were are not so emotionally charged.

As to Lincoln's conversion, Christ forgave the penitent thief, as Jesus' mercy and salvation have been proven to be freely given. However, if Lincoln became a Christian after Gettsburg, what of the occasions that Lincoln asked if his cannon's were close enough to shell inhabited cities in the South? These occasions occured after Gettsburg, since most of the crimes against humanity, in the form of the city burning, the torturing and the destruction of homes and theft of property took place after that time. There were many "Marches to the Sea" and I question whether a Christian man could condemn so many innocents to death as Lincoln did. I have faith you nor I would have.
Russ Person

Cindy Arsenault

2/13/2023 12:21:22 pm

Thank you, Mr. Person, for articulating the facts that are missing from most history textbooks about Lincoln.

Robin Neilson

2/12/2025 07:54:07 am

I appreciate the details added by Russ Person. Most Lincoln biographies read like a Golden Book fairy tale. Lincoln wrote this quote, which helps clarify his position on his true reasons for pushing the Civil War: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” Not only did Lincoln provoke the bloodiest US war with the greatest loss of American life, let’s not forget he also gave Americans the gift of fiat paper currency and the federal income tax, two scourges that have undermined our country’s wealth ever since. The man was the greatest war monger and tyrant our country has ever seen, destroying the south in order to “save it,” laying the groundwork for robbing the American people of their financial independence and handing our country over to the banking cartels.

Ema link

2/11/2020 09:41:42 am

I did not know AB Lincoln wrestled! Love what you are doing.

Santiago

2/11/2020 01:18:48 pm

This is one of the best biography ive every seen it is such detailed and I feel you did a wonderful job Mr. De Gree

2/13/2023 12:19:56 pm

I have to agree with Mr. Person above. The failure of A Patriot’s History and Classical Historian to include the facts of Lincoln’s presidential actions and not merely his rhetoric on the evils of slavery is why I will not use their materials. Lincoln’s presidency did a lot of damage, and we still suffer from it today. While the above biography is beautifully written and includes many facts, it does not give a complete picture of the man’s actions and does not cause us to critically evaluate his presidency. We are left with the impression that we should admire all that Lincoln did, because he was opposed to slavery. This is a problem with most history education and it leads a culture to embrace an ideology of “ends justify the means” and to the failure to evaluate unintended consequences of seemingly pious, but often unconstitutional, policies.

Jim link

2/12/2025 08:41:24 am

Great write-up Mr DeGree! Thank.you for your continued efforts to help us learn.

Abraham Lincoln

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John De Gree

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